Christopher Brookmyre - Parlabane 04 (11 page)

'Jack here,' he said quietly, for the benefit of the mike. 'With Emily. Status is two changes of trousers required. We were kind of in the middle of something. I guess I should have requested radio silence, Toby.'

'It's not Toby,' replied the voice.

Parlabane and Emily looked at each other, which was understandable, but at a cost of neither looking the right way as a second, unnoticed camouflage screen toppled forward opposite the first. Parlabane reacted and dived to the floor as Rory Glen and Kathy emerged from their cover, firing rapidly from a distance of twenty or thirty feet.

Emily not only froze to the spot, but even forgot she had the means to retaliate. She heard whizzing sounds and soft impacts, but felt nothing, and it 61

took a long, incredulous moment to deduce that this meant none of the shots had hit her. Parlabane was rolling and scrambling across the ground towards the cover of a tree, arced paint splats following his progress like a comet tail across the camouflage screen. In the excitement of the moment, they had reacted to the moving target and fired at him, taking their eyes off the sitting duck (or frozen turkey) for a crucial half second. When they did return their attention to Emily, she had recovered from her paralysis and was charging for the cover of the screen, her progress assisted by Parlabane now returning fire, which required Glen and Kathy to take evasive action of their own. She picked herself up from a bundle into a crouch, panting and laughing, the ridiculousness of it all being faded from significance by an unexpected competitive edge that felt natural enough to have its roots in survival instinct. A voice in her head was telling her there was nothing to be so worked up about, the worst that could happen was she'd get hit with a paintball and knocked out of the game, but right then, that actually sounded pretty disastrous. She wasn't bothered about winning - yet - but she was damn sure she wanted to be playing. It was a pure, uncomplicated and innocently exhilarating experience, the kind of thrill you weren't supposed to get after the age of about thirteen. After that, you had sex, booze, drugs or power to trip on, if you could get them, but on this evidence there still remained an appetite somewhere in her psyche that those weren't designed, intended or remotely able to satisfy.

To her left she could see Parlabane, huddled against a paint-blotted tree, pinned down by enemy fire a few yards from cover. She leaned around the screen, a wood and wire mesh construction supporting green camouflagepatterned canvas, thousands of leaves adhering to a tacky coating on the outside. Kathy was shooting from a kneeling position as Rory moved carefully sideways, intending to widen their triangulation of fire. Shouting to get their attention, she began pulling the trigger as fast as the bolt allowed it to recock, getting off five shots before retreating. She didn't hit anything, but when she peered around again, she saw Rory scurrying back towards the toppled screen to help Kathy pull it upright in front of them. Emily splatted a few shots against the screen in order to keep them there, as Parlabane hurtled on swift and light strides to join her.

'Having fun yet?' she asked him.

'I'm about to,' he whispered, masking his mike again.

'Glen, you're a devious fucker,' he said, his tone almost admiring. 'We figured you'd listen to our channel, but broadcasting on it was low. Nearly shat ourselves it was so sudden.'

'All is fair in love and war, mate,' came the reply via their earpieces.

'You mean you're this devious when you're trying to get a shag?'

62

'Stick your head up and I'll tell you.'

'I just might. You're almost as bad a shot as your pal Katie.'

'It's Kathy.'

Parlabane grinned at this with a silent satisfaction Emily didn't grasp.

'Join in. Keep them talking,' he whispered, before twisting the dial on his headset to change channel.

'You going to take that insult lying down, Kath?' Emily asked. 'I think he's sullying the honour of our company. Stand up and make him pay.'

'You're nearer,' Kathy replied. 'Why don't you shoot him for the both of us?'

While Kathy was talking, Parlabane was transmitting. 'Red team requesting urgent back-up at the screens, under attack from four enemy,' he said quietly but urgently, adopting a hoarse, low register that was intended to sound like Rory. He wasn't going to get a job on
Dead Ringers
, but it might be passable over crackly headsets to team-mates who'd only just met the guy. Parlabane remained silent as she and their two opponents traded another few jibes over the airwaves. He then nodded and held up a thumb. That his subterfuge had worked was apparent from the impish, toddler-with-a-secret smile on his face; less so was what was so clever about inviting enemy reinforcements to outnumber them in what was currently a balanced stand-off. Parlabane switched back to the blue channel.

'Blue team, for those wondering what all the witticisms are about, we are pinned down, two enemy engaged. We are about a hundred and fifty yards south-east of the gardens. Time is of the essence.'

'Don't bother yourselves,' Rory advised. 'We'll have splattered them and moved on by the time you get here.'

'What are you planning?' Emily whispered, levering the boom away. 'Bring more of their guys and more of our guys here for an even bigger stalemate?'

Parlabane was about to answer when instead he reacted to movement somewhere to his left, turning and firing four shots as a figure flashed between the trees. He then stood up and sent a volley towards the opposite screen to keep Rory and Kathy from responding to the development.

'Come over this side,' he urged, indicating Emily should take position next to him at the other end of the screen. He stood up again and unleashed another burst, allowing Emily to lean out and look for the third opponent. She saw nothing, then noticed Rory's head peeping out at ground level, his gun just in front. She withdrew as the paintballs whizzed past the side of the screen, their sound failing to cover that of hurried footsteps as this new interloper stole another few yards forward.

Emily thought she could hear his voice, low and muffled, but couldn't make out the words. Whatever he'd said, he repeated a couple of times before 63

calling loudly: 'Rory! Kathy! Switch to the red channel for fuck's sake, I'm trying to talk here.'

Parlabane indicated to Emily to do likewise.

'. . . as soon as I could,' she heard.

'Why? You're supposed to be defending the base. You left Grieg on his own?'

'You said there were four of them up here. Grieg can handle--'

'I didn't say anything. I've been on the Bl--'

'Red team, this is Grieg. Base under attack. Repeat, base under attack.'

'Parlabane, you sneaky little bastard,' Rory shouted.

'I need help back here, I've got two oh fuck. Fuck. Sorry. I'm hit, I'm out. They've got the flag. Exiting north, side of the stream.'

'All is fair in love and war, Rory,' Parlabane called. It got kind of hectic after that. Stealth, strategy and tension had had their moment. Now it was time for pace, noise and mayhem. Communications crackled in Emily's earpiece, too many simultaneous voices to even identify an individual, far less the specific content of anything that was being said, Parlabane started backing away, bent low and eyes flitting rapidly around the periphery. Audible and urgent shouts hailed that the enemy were doing the same thing.

'If they're smart they'll do what Joanna suggested and go all out for a crosssteal. But my guess is she's the only one here who really knows the game, so they'll try and intercept our flag carriers instead.'

'Operation Human Shield for us, then?'

Parlabane grinned. 'Only if we find our team-mates first. We'd best split up, improve the odds.'

'What about backing each other up?' Emily asked, a little nervous of going it alone, albeit more through the comfort of safety in numbers than any of the tactical proficiency Parlabane had exhibited.

'The hide-and-seek bit's over, I reckon. It's time for running and shooting. Two people together make a bigger target to aim your paint at.'

And with that, he was gone, disappearing swiftly through some shrubs and out of sight.

Emily felt the pulsing return, the hollow, tense sensation growing in her guts as she stalked her way towards the cover of another tree, bracing herself for an ambush with every inch.

'Ach, bollocks to it,' she said aloud, and began running instead.
Exiting by
the side of the stream
, the felled opponent had said. Well, she didn't have the first idea where the stream was, so there was no point in attempting a specific destination; and arguably a virtue to not having one. Best to just charge 64

blindly into battle and draw fire away from the flag carrier. They'd survived longer than anticipated, but the role of the first wave hadn't changed. The cries and half-formed sentences continued over the airwaves, mostly red-team voices on the blue-team channel, attempting to relay their own or their quarry's estimated positions but lacking the geographic frame of reference that would have made it worthwhile. She flicked to the red channel just for a bit of peace. This bore unexpected fruit shortly after her charge into the arboreal unknown, having slowed to a tired jog, had ended in a headlong tumble over an exposed tree-root. Without the distraction of voices sounding like they were inside her head, she was able to hear a lone male speaking aloud to himself only a few yards away as she lay, inconspicuous, on the forest floor.

'Oh fuck, here we go,' was all he said, but it was enough to give her the jump on him as he prepared to face down the approaching blue-flag carrier. Emily couldn't see him yet, but she knew where he'd appear from. She spotted his target first, a ruddy-faced and excited-looking Liz, hurdling an ancient trunk and bearing a red flag in one hand, the burden unlikely to do much for her aim.

He made his move as Liz stumbled upon landing, the man emerging from cover and opening fire from a crouch on one knee, only four or five yards from his prey. Max was his name, if she remembered correctly. Liz completely lost her footing in fright at this sudden appearance and went sprawling to the ground, but not before two purple splotches had appeared on her blue tabard and a third criminally blemished the perfection of her yellow fleece at the right shoulder.

'Bastard,' she said, near breathless as her exertion and fright turned to laughter.

Emily had responded too slow, but not, as it turned out, too quickly. Having failed to spring up in John-Woo-style balletic slow motion and thwart Liz's assassin before he could pull the trigger, she at least had the sense not to play her hand too early. Even as he made his way towards the flag that Liz was obliged to discard, his oblivious back exposed and vulnerable, Emily could already hear further footsteps approach. Two sets, in fact, converging from different directions. Max heard them too, and made the mistake of freezing where he was as he looked for their sources. He (and Emily behind him) saw his team-mate Kathy first, which meant that by the time he saw Toby, Max had already been splattered by him and Emily had vanished from her work colleague's line of sight. Max dropped to his knees with mock gravitas, then collapsed, turning, to end up on his back, only feet from the now squatting and still laughing Liz. Kathy reacted astonishingly, clocking the angle of fire that felled her team-mate and practising an evasive forward roll, from which 65

she emerged firing in Toby's direction. Toby took a single, decisive splat to the middle of the chest, all of his own shots having headed where Kathy
would
have been but for her spontaneous acrobatics, having awakened skills dormant, to Emily's knowledge, since she'd left secondary school.

'Flag recovered,' Kathy said triumphantly, if prematurely, into her boom mike. 'Max is out. I'll get this back to base. Continue the assault, Rory.' With that, she made her way towards Liz, turning her back on Emily, her business partner of six years and friend of over a decade, who with a tangible, rippling frisson of delight, stood up and shot her in the back. Five times. Stealth wasn't really much of an option when you were carrying a two-footsquare, bright-red flag on a four-foot wooden pole while simultaneously trying to retain hold of your paintgun and your balance. Speed was, at least, worth striving for, though only marginally more attainable for precisely the same reasons. With this in mind, she had opted for short bursts of pace between trees; she wasn't exactly slipping silently and invisibly on elven feet, but at least she could put some wood between herself and any incoming paintballs as she got her breath back and scoped the next stretch.

'The base is secure,' Joanna said in her earpiece. 'But Rory Glen's creeping about somewhere. He had a go earlier but I warned him off with a few volleys. He'll be back, though, so keep a sharp eye.'

After the chaos of the skirmish that had left her with the flag and four players out of the game, Emily had become a little disorientated, but she told herself this was no bad thing, because if she didn't know where she was headed, then it would be harder for her opponents to intercept her. That said, wandering ever-deeper into the woods in the wrong direction and all alone would be neither tactically astute nor remotely sensible. She was relieved, then, to look up and catch a glimpse of the turret from which the UML pair were monitoring the contest. That gave her a fix on her destination and a means of avoiding the most direct route.

She felt the tension grow again as she got closer to the base, something exacerbated coincidentally by the silence in her earpiece. Baxter had reminded the fallen that they were not allowed to relay any relevant information to their still active team-mates other than that they'd been hit and were thus out of the game. Nobody, to her knowledge, had broken this rule, but their on-going chatter was still clogging the channels, so Baxter had instructed them to avert their mikes. It had been a couple of minutes since she'd heard anything at all: no contact from her own surviving team-mates (no news being good news), and no eavesdropped communiques from the enemy.